MAGNESIUM

By HERBERT A FRANKE AND M E TROUGRT


SUMMARY OUTLINE
 Page  Page
Summary 743 Pr,ee~  752
 Salientstatistlcs. 743 Foreign trade  753
Production 744 Technologic developments  753
Consumption 750 World production  754
National defense and war measures.  752




SUMMARY

 Events in 1941 forecast that an unprecedented quantity of magnesium would
be required for military purposes—for the production of aircraft and
incendiary bombs. The War Production Board recommended that magnesium production
in the United States be extended more than 90 times that of 1939—-to
approximately 610,000,000 pounds. In 1941 the production of primary magnesium
totaled 32,~89,052 pounds—160 percent more than in 1940 (12,521,726
pounds) and 386 percent more thanin 1939 (6,700,122 pounds). The 1941 output
was greater than the combined output of the previous
4 years. The Dow Chemical Co., an outstanding factor in the magnesium industry
since its inception in this country in 1915, was joined by a second producer
(for the first time since 1927)—the Permanente Metals Corporation.
Dow continued to be by far the principal producer, employing its usuel process
involving the electrolysis of fused 85-percent magnesium chloride derived
from Michigan underground brine and, for the first time, from Texas seawater.
Permanente recovered its metal by the new, carbo-electrothermic process,
using magnesia from Californiasea water and Nevada magnesite as it~ raw materials.

Salient statistics of the magnesium ihdustry in the United States, 1939—41

1939
1940
1941
Production of primary magnesium pounds~Quoted price per pound' cents~Imports
pounds~Exports do - --World production (estimated) short tons~
6,700,122
27.0
76
' 4,200,000 34,100
12,521,726
27.0

1,718,444
49,500
32,589,052
22.5
 
13,098,424
85,500
 ' Lowest nominal price (New York) for primary metal ingot 99.8 percent pure,
carlots.
 ' Estimated.
 Magnesium metal in primary form; in addition, metal was exported in other
forms (86,070 pounds) and in powder (33,383 ixiunds) during last 6 months
of 1941.
 497779- -4~—- 49 743